


Whispers of the Unseen World

by skyofsilvermoonofgold



Series: The Unseen World [1]
Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: A little bit dark, Alternate Universe - Magic, Crows, Gen, Inspired By, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Magic, Spell-casting Shenanigans, but not any more than the netflix show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 05:27:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16655074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyofsilvermoonofgold/pseuds/skyofsilvermoonofgold
Summary: Anne talks to everything. She throws her words at the world and sees what will respond. More things talk back than is usual for a young orphaned girl, though it takes her a while to realize.





	Whispers of the Unseen World

She talks to everything. The trees of the wood, her friends, her family (the word still gives her a thrill), the rocks, the sky, the rusty fox outside her writing hut– anything that will stay still long enough. And they talk back. In a way, that is. To say they all  _ talk _ would be inaccurate, and Anne is very appreciative of accuracy. She speaks aloud, pours her heart out, and the listeners respond; sometimes without words, but she always hears them. The lone oak in the field thanks her for her gifts, and tells her what it is like to reach into the earth and into the wind, feeling sun and rain as they come. The high stone bluffs soak up salty sea air and watch out for her as she plays in the surf. Later on, she will realize it is unusual for waves to do the bidding of a little girl. The fox says, twitching his tail, that the two of them are kindred spirits, and bounds away before she can ask what he means. Matthew tells her with his soft eyes that he loves her as a daughter. Diana, dark-haired and serene as her namesake, hides many secrets behind her bright laugh, but Anne knows that in time they will tell themselves.

For now, when she leads with a note the world joins in for the refrain, and it’s all blissfully uncomplicated and the way things are meant to be. 

 

One day in December, their school-teacher falls ill and has to stay home. His replacement is an unassuming woman who enters the schoolhouse wrapped in shawls. Her brown hair is in an orderly knot at the back of her neck. Brushing snow from her wool-covered shoulders, she introduces herself as Miss Owens. 

“Good morning, Miss Owens,” the class chants obediently. Nodding to them all, she consults the instructions on the blackboard. 

“Open your readers to page 23, please” Miss Owens says. Anne cannot help but notice a slightly dubious quirk to her brow as she signal one boy to begin.

The snowflakes fall outside the window, the minutes drag by like a Southerner’s drawl, and as they move into algebra, it becomes increasingly clear that no one is paying attention. Heads are drooping, and whispered conversations get louder and louder. Notes on carefully folded paper scraps pass from child to child, and giggles can be heard every time one is opened.

“Would everyone stand up?” Her face, that of a mild-mannered woman in her early thirties, doesn’t shift from its calm set, but Anne tenses, and she feels her friends on edge as the rise to their feet.

“I think we all agree that we can’t carry on like this.”

She waits for the blow to fall.

“Let’s sit by the fire, hm? My feet are aching.” 

They follow her uncertainly to crowd around the wood stove, faces turned toward the teacher sitting cross-legged in their midst.  _ Really, an inconceivable turn of events, _ Anne thinks.

Miss Owens says, “Students, could you go round quickly and introduce yourselves? First names only, I think; names are powerful things. Who’d like to start?”

Tillie goes first. When Anne’s turn comes, she announces her name clearly. “With an ‘E’, if you please, Miss Owens,” she cannot keep herself from adding. She won’t relinquish her one grace. One of the boys snickers, and she glares at all of them.

“With an ‘E’,” repeats Miss Owens. For just a heartbeat, she fixes Anne with a sharp, assessing glance. The moment passes quickly. When everyone’s name has been spoken, she thanks them solemnly, and hands one of her shawls to Moody Spurgeon, who forgot to bring his coat.

“Now,” she begins, “I would like to tell you a story.”

Her tale is one of long winter nights and firelight against the dark, and a brave musician who plays so beautifully that the wolves run away and the sun comes back to hear another song. Anne is transfixed, swept away on a tide of mingling imagination. By the time it winds to a close, school has finished. The children say goodbye and bundle themselves up, slightly dazed. Not even the class bullies can muster up a sneer.

 

“That was a witch’s tale!” Diana says as they walk home arm in arm. “I’ve heard of such things from Great-aunt Josephine – like a magic-working inside of a story.”

“Is your great-aunt a witch, Diana?” snips Ruby. But then she adds, “I’ve seen Miss Owens in town before – buying groceries. Always in those horrid great work-boots. Mother says she’s a spinster, that she lives all alone in a tiny little house in the woods.  _ Father _ said that she just moved here last year. She’s very plain, isn’t she?”

They trade speculations on the possibility of Miss Owens being a witch or a foreign spy until they reach the road to Ruby’s house. She flounces off with a cheery goodbye, and they wave after her. 

The two of them continue on down the path, and the subject is forgotten as Anne considers aloud the perfect poetry of the moment: walking among the snowy trees, pressed close to her dear and beautiful friend in the growing twilight. A nearby maple agrees, and so does Diana.

 

Miss Owens is in charge of the class for the next two days, and each day they complete their work early so she can tell another story, every one different and every one strange and captivating. Each day, Anne feels herself observed. 

After the third day, Miss Owens takes her aside when everyone else has left the room. The stove can’t quite catch up to the mid-winter chill blowing in through the door, and she wraps her scarf around her neck as she faces the substitute teacher. In such a situation, Anne would ordinarily be nervous, but now she is only curious and a little confused. She finds it best to have it out straight away.

“Why have you been watching me, Miss Owens?” she asks.

Miss Owens only raises her eyebrows, as if to say,  _ Oh, so you noticed. _ In response, she slides a slim silver bracelet off her wrist and places it in Anne’s hand.

“What can you figure out from this?”

She feels the trinket’s cool metal curve in her palm, and doesn’t even have to look at it.

“Someone loves you very much and they gave this to you, and now you’re waiting for them to return to you,” she whispers, eyes watering a little.  _ How very tragical. _

She meets Miss Owens’ gaze, and there she sees a deep and profound understanding.

“You have a gift, Anne,” she says. “Go home now; we’ll talk again.”

She leaves the schoolhouse alone, nearly forgetting her hat. That night, she dreams of fire and thunder and two figures who burn, outlined, against the mist.

 

Mr. Phillips returns the next morning, a little paler, but otherwise just the same as before – in other words, universally terrible. Class returns easily to normal. Miss Owens was fascinating, but not outstanding as a teacher: more interested in stories and mysterious pronouncements than teaching. Anne is once again bored, and the mornings and evenings slip by until Friday, when, baking scones with Marilla, she hears a knock on the door. 

Running to open it, she is curiously unsurprised to see Miss Owens, who murmurs a greeting and steps inside when Anne invites her. 

“Marilla, this is the teacher I told you all about!”

Marilla, tense and straight-backed, looks uncertain how to feel.

Miss Owens shakes her hand and says, “I wanted to speak with you about Anne.”

 

In the sitting room, the three of them uncertainly clutch their cups of tea. Anne holds hers close to her face, breathing in the floral scent of the rising steam.

“What I’ve come to tell you,” their visitor says softly, “Is that you ward has the Gift.”

There is silence for a few moments while this news is digested. Marilla’s eyes widen; her hands fidget; then she exhales decisively.

“I suppose I can’t say I’m surprised,” she replies in her dry manner. “That explains a great deal, in fact. But how did you figure it out, if I might ask?”

“People like us tend to recognize one another.”

“I – ah. So you are–”

“A mage, yes.” Miss Owens smiles fractionally. As she brings up the next topic, she looks hesitant, unsure of the ground beneath her feet. “As there’s no magical school on Avonlea, I thought I might act as a sort of mentor to Anne, teaching her to control her abilities. If you’d be agreeable–”

At this, Anne can hold her peace no longer. 

“I’m agreeable! Oh, Marilla, do let me – I want it  _ so _ dearly.”

There is arguing and negotiating aplenty, but by the time Miss Owens leaves, closing the door gently behind her, Anne has directions to her house and a promise to meet her Tuesday afternoons for a lesson.

 

“Well,” Marilla says, “My Anne, Gifted. Did you know?”

This last is directed to Anne, who considers for a while.

“I think so,” she says seriously. “I just had no word for it.”

 

__________

 

The way to Miss Owens’ house is an unremarkable patch of forest; the trees are perhaps a little louder, but not exceptionally so. Her house is similarly ordinary, a tiny cabin with curtained windows and ivy growing up one wall. 

When Anne reaches it, she knocks loudly, and the door swings open. She notices that the hinges squeak, and then sees that there is no one behind the door.

“Come in!” calls Miss Owens’ voice.

Tentatively, she steps across the threshold. The walls of the house are painted pale blue, covered in places with needle-points and overstuffed bookcases. It is a little brighter than she feels weak winter sunlight coming through the windows should allow. She reaches for descriptors, and comes up with  _ well-kept, sparse _ , and  _ plain. _ She is a little disappointed.

A large orange cat slips out from under a table and twines around her legs, and Anne cheers up; this is familiar witchy territory.

She finds Miss Owens bent over a desk in a small study, minutely more cluttered than the rest of the house.

“Good day,” she says, twisting round. “I see you’ve met Gingersnap.” 

The cat mews and twitches his whiskers.

“But Gingersnap isn’t a very magical name,” Anne protests before she can stop herself. “Why call him something so mundane, when you could have chosen Elmgrove, or Gawain, or Loyal Flame-eyes? Midnight wouldn’t be right for his particular coloring, so what about the Sunset Knight? I think a marvelous name can make half of one’s character. If it were up to me, I would have been called Cordelia,” she finishes.

“Hmmm. Cordelia,” Miss Owens muses. “Sounds like something out of Byron. But there’s no mystery to it: I just happen to like gingersnaps.”

“Oh. I’m sorry – that wasn’t very clever of me, was it?” Her feet shuffle.

“Don’t worry. I have been asked worse questions about magic by wiser people than you.”

“Oh,” Anne repeats, enthusiasm returning. “Then please, Miss Owens, what magic am I learning today?”

“None,” comes the reply. “I thought that for now we might just sit and talk.”

So it is for the rest of the afternoon. While she’s a bit put off by Miss Owens’ tendency towards short sentences, she does answer all of Anne’s questions. Next time, she promises, she’ll lend her a book or two. Anne leaves with a spring in her step, and after bidding goodbye to Gingersnap and his owner, she dances all the way home.

  
  


Though she learns a good deal from Miss Owens, Anne finds that she discovers more on her own. Once she has a name for it, the connection between her and the rest of the world becomes stronger, more real. She can feel it now as a palpable humming tension beneath her skin, at the core of her being, and she thrills to it. Names do have a kind of power, she thinks: the word ‘Cuthbert’ gave her a home, and now the word ‘magic’ gives her  _ this. _

 

Marilla comes running one afternoon when she hears a shriek from the kitchen. Her cry of “What on earth–!” breaks off when she sees Anne grinning delightedly at a lit candle on the table before her.

“I did it!” she says.

“Did what?”

By way of an answer, she points at the tiny flame, and it is extinguished. There is no breeze or draft in the room. Then she crooks her finger, and it flickers to life again. The light reflects in her shining eyes, casting a shadow on the floor behind her.

 

True to her nature, Anne devours every book of magic given to her. Her favorite at the moment is Sibley’s  _ Communication with the Creatures of the Air. _ Sibley may be a little overly bird-focused, and she wouldn’t mind a few more chapters on bats and butterflies, but the exotic species names and colorful illustrations catch her fancy. It feels like a great cultural crossroads – who knew a book could be so full of magic, science, and art, with sprinkles of Latin on top of it all? Looking over the spells and anatomical diagrams, she feels wise and wordly, as if she is already a powerful magician.

She takes it outside to her writing hut, and pores over the pages till the light dies. One section draws her attention repeatedly, so she bookmarks it, until one afternoon she spots a flash of folding wings in a tree.

“A red-tailed hawk,” she says aloud. Sibley has greatly expanded her bird-based knowledge. “Good day, sir or madam.”

She giggles, and suddenly an idea hits her. Opening the book, she takes out the ribbon between pages fifty-two and fifty-three. She has read the instructions over and over until they are burned in her memory, and now she is determined to follow them to the letter. Anne sets the book down on the forest floor, glancing up at the hawk to make sure it is still there. It fixes her with a beady yellow stare.

She straightens up, brushing her hands on her pinafore in a businesslike manner, and flings her arms towards the sky.

“North, South, East, and West! I call upon the winds of the cardinal points,” she intones in her best voice of solemn drama. She can’t help but feel it falls a little short, but the thought is swept away by a surge of power rising in her like a tide.

“Bring to me a bird of the skies, one…” She falters, and finds she has forgotten the Latin name. Time to improvise.

“One dark and noble, clever and swift! I call this bird to me, so we may speak!”

A brisk wind picks up in the clearing, whistling through the nearby trees. Now that her voice is gone, she can hear the pounding of her heart, just behind her ears. She watches the hawk intently.

Giving Anne a final look of predatory disdain, it spreads its wings and flies off.

“Drat,” she says, dejected. She picks up Sibley and turns to go. It had really  _ felt _ as though it was working.

A soft noise catches her ear, and she pauses.

It grows louder and more recognizable as she stands there: caws and cries, the continuing hiss of the breeze, and a sound she knows instinctively to be the rustle of wings. She looks back just in time to see a mass of swirling black bearing down on her. There is only a moment for her to think–  _ Crows– _ before she is engulfed.

Raucous calls echo all around her; she feels rushing air against her skin, and feathers brush her face. She stumbles, turning round, but all she can see is living, moving dark, punctuated by brief flashes of sunlight. The crows are very confused, she can tell. They wonder what they are doing here, and they think of food and updrafts beneath their wings.

_ I ought to have tried harder to memorize the whole of it, _ she thinks, a little hysterically. But Anne Shirley-Cuthbert is nothing if not determined.

“Hello,” she shouts with more than just her voice. “My deepest apologies for the mix-up, but, ah, here you all are! How do you do?”

She feels the attention of the swarm shift toward her, bright, multifaceted, and inquisitive. No, not quite. Swarm is not the proper collective for a group of crows, and she knows she has heard the right one somewhere. It was a very singular word. The crows do not speak, but they draw in closer.

_ Murder, _ she recalls with a shiver. A sharp talon grazes her arm, and she flinches away, only to back into more of them. The excitement of the thing is wearing off; she now feels quite swallowed up. She runs forward a few steps, and the birds follow her. In her haste, vision obscured, her toe catches on something and she falls to the ground, palms stinging as they collide with the earth. Sooty, shadowy wings mob around her, and she curls defensively inward.

“Go!” she shouts into her arms. “Go away!”

Suddenly, she hears someone calling her name. The sound is faint, blocked by the clamor around her, but it’s there clear enough, and she raises her head.

“Anne!” There it is again.

“Leave– me–  _ alone! _ ” she cries with all the force she can muster. There’s a curious sensation in the air, like a ripple speeding away from her in every direction, and the crows’ squawks grow louder – then they scatter, rising up into the sky every which way, and their bewilderment vanishes as soon as they feel the wind under their wings. She wonders what that wild freedom must be like.

“Sorry,” she says to the shrinking black shapes.

“Anne?”

She looks over to see Cole Mackenzie sprawled on his back in the patchy snow, no small amount of concern in his eyes.

“Cole,” she says, “What are– how did you find me here?”

He stands up, shaking himself off.

“I was going for a walk and I heard some commotion, so I went off the path to find it out… Anne, what happened?”

She realizes that in the rush of discovery and learning about this new part of herself, she’s neglected to say anything of it to her friends. But Anne has no desire to withhold a good story, so there in the clearing she pulls herself up off the ground and tells Cole everything. In detail.

He blinks, surprised. Then he pulls his sketchbook out of his worn satchel and shows her a page full of figure drawings, none of which are in the same positions he drew them in. Sheepishly, he asks if Miss Owens might have time for someone else. 

Anne laughs and wraps her arms around him, and he tentatively returns the hug.

 

They begin to learn together– Miss Owens agrees immediately, and Anne feels no regret whatsoever about the careful excuse she helps Cole feed to his parents. She has frequently been told that lying is a sin, but this is obviously for a greater good, and is more like an exercise of imagination in any case. 

For the first time, she sees how wildly one person’s magic varies from another’s. Cole’s is quieter, more subdued, and often visual rather than verbal. She has little use for complicated sigils and diagrams– he relies on them heavily, and somehow always manages to make them look like art. Beautiful, Anne thinks, even if she doesn’t quite understand it.

Her strange silence about her Gift swept away with the crows, the first thing she does at school the next day is tell her friends. Cole asks for secrecy, so she talks only about herself– no great difficulty. 

Everyone is suitably astounded. Diana is starry-eyed and delighted. Josie Pye, hateful girl, sneers and says loftily that Anne is making it all up.

“I am not!” she retorts hotly. Before she can launch into an impassioned self-defense, Josie Pye glides off, nose in the air. The next moment, Anne is buried under a mounting pile of questions fired from all sides.

“I just  _ knew _ about that spinster lady,” says Ruby, while Tillie asks excitedly if Anne can fly now. She answers them all, and if she occasionally exaggerates just a little bit, she can only say that it is nice to be the center of attention, especially for such a wonderful reason.

Class resumes, and she plops down in her seat with sunshine in her heart.

 

At this point in her life, she ought to have learned that happiness doesn’t come for free, but she has ever been an optimist. The consequences come the minute she leaves the schoolhouse. Making the turn down the lane, she notices that she is being followed. It is not her friends; she can tell. She walks faster, but they stay close behind, footsteps heavy on the dirt path.

When she can bear it no longer, she stops and spins around. The sight is more or less what she expected: before her stand Billy and three of his friends, smiling with boyish excitement. The late afternoon light is mellow gold, and throws sharp black shadows on the sides of their faces.

“Heard something about you, redhead,” Billy calls, taking a lazy step forward.

_ That Josie Pye, _ Anne says to herself.

“I heard that you were a  _ witch. _ That true?”

For a long while he had left her alone, but he clearly has found new ammunition. He’s close now, close enough to tower over her. She holds her ground, tilting her chin up to meet his eyes.

“I’d not be surprised,” he says. “Little freak.” He puts his hands out and pushes her, and she stumbles back, even though the shove was light. Her mind is flooded suddenly with the memory of a tall, stone-faced man with a belt in his hand. A tremor passes through her body. It is not, she thinks, too late to run away.

“Hey!” Billy is speaking again, still smiling. “Answer me when I talk to you!”

Anne’s breathing is fast and irregular. She has nearly resigned herself to hiding a few bruises tomorrow morning when she remembers something, a laughably obvious fact that fills her bones with warm strength.

He’s not wrong.

That now-familiar tingle crackles down her arms. Miss Owens has told her that most of the Gifted prefer the terms ‘mage’ or ‘magician,’ as ‘witch’ carries so many negative associations.

Orphan; redhead; wild; liar; sometimes Anne feels as though she has been tacked together of words with negative associations. What harm will one more do?

The light around them dims, much faster than is thought correct for sunsets. None of the boys notice anything off for several seconds, until barely perceptible flickers catch their eyes.

The stretching shadows around them start to move independently of the things casting them– slowly at first, but in greater and greater movements until they are writhing across the ground. They reach the boys’ feet and begin to swirl up their legs, as they look down in almost comical expressions of fear.

A large and peculiar grin spreads across Anne’s face. She is not consumed by the strange darkness, and she stands out in sharp relief, her messy braids glowing in the dying evening light. But she sees none of this, and says unconcernedly, “Yes, that’s right. I am a witch, and you’d best remember it, Billy Andrews.”

That’s all it takes. They turn and run, and Anne serenely watches them go. As the four boys vanish down the lane, the surrounding area lightens again to the washed-out colors of early dusk. 

She exhales shakily; her earlier fear returns, but dies away just as fast. A relieved, breathy laugh escapes her.

She’s done it. She scared them off, with no one stepping in to save her. In that moment, she feels proud and very grown-up.

“What a story I have for Matthew and Marilla!” she says out loud. And the field next to the path agrees in a chorus of grassy hisses and small chirps.

Anne starts homeward again, now uninterrupted.  _ Homeward, _ she muses, _ what a beautiful word, _ alternately walking and skipping as her feet choose.

Behind her, buds hidden among the wild grasses bloom into tiny flowers, dancing in the  breeze by the wayside.


End file.
